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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27402112">One Telepath to Another</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentFrostbite/pseuds/The%20Chronicler'>The Chronicler (AgentFrostbite)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Being Open is Not a Weakness [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>And he helps heal everyone he touches, Charles Xavier is a ray of sunshine, Emma Frost Has a Heart, Enemies to Friends, Gen, Mutual Healing, Telepathic chats, Telepaths are always intrigued with each other and Emma is no exception</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 21:14:15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,774</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27402112</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentFrostbite/pseuds/The%20Chronicler</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There isn't much to do in her little cell at the CIA, so Emma does what she always does when she's bored and wanders to the edge of her telepathic perception, probing the minds of anyone she can reach. She's rather surprised to find Shaw. She's even more surprised to sense the other telepath, Charles. He's apparently gotten a bit more powerful, and luckily for her, he's so distracted he barely notices her entry into his mind.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Being Open is Not a Weakness [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1985278</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>One Telepath to Another</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>  Months of close proximity has allowed Emma a skill she finds quite useful: she can find Shaw's mental signature anywhere in the world. When he's close, she can hear his thoughts (right up until he puts that helmet on and toys with her because he can and he's power-hungry and men like him know no better way of entertainment than to play with everyone around them), and when he's far away, his presence is a simple flicker of a nuclear explosion contained in a snow globe, lethal and alluring and deceptive in its simplistic awe.</p><p>  So when Erik drives a coin through Shaw's head, she feels the gambit of emotions as the man (monster) is finally snuffed out. Relief that she's out from beneath his thumb, rage at Erik for killing him, disappointment that she wasn't rescued (or even given a second thought), sadness at losing the only person who thought of her gift as a unique part of <em>her</em> and not just a useful tool or weapon, smugness at outliving the seemingly immortal man. Confliction, above all, as she never did manage to sort out where Sebastian Shaw fit into her life.</p><p>  She senses the other telepath (who has grown in his abilities) and tries to latch onto him. He notices her presence, but only in the way that one notices sweat rolling down their face when they're trying to disarm a bomb. Erik Lehnsherr is a little busy trying to take that one last step into Shaw's shoes. She doesn't need to sense his mind (can't, she notices, and then realizes that Shaw's helmet has been lost to the metal-bender; how else could she have seen Shaw just before he died?) to know that Erik doesn't hold the same darkness Shaw did. His darkness is primarily pain-fueled. Shaw's was much more...malevolent.</p><p>  To be honest, it was one of the things that had drawn her to him.</p><p>  Keeping her tenuous connection to the other telepath, she observes as Erik fights himself to make the decision to launch the missiles back at the fleets. She watches with detached fascination as Charles begs Erik not to do it, to be the better man, "This won't fix anything, Erik, <em>please</em> listen!" She's so focused on the drama unfolding (the fate of the world now lies in whether or not Charles can convince Erik not to fire those missiles) that she doesn't sense it, either. Not until after it happens.</p><p>  Moira has a gun. Moira knows that Charles is attempting to distract Erik long enough for the missiles to detonate safely away from the fleet. Moira has very good aim and a clear understanding that Erik and his helmet are very bulletproof.</p><p>  When Erik deflects the bullet out of pure instinct, he really isn't paying attention where he deflects it to.</p><p>  It goes straight into Charles's back.</p><p>  Emma actually shoots to her own feet, a gasp tearing from her own lips as she shifts into diamond in a localized patch, right at the spot where Charles was just shot. It's been so long since she was so linked with a mind of a person about to die or be injured, and the shock of the pain filters through to her. She feels a phantom trickle of blood, feels her knees go weak beneath her, feels her skin hardening before relaxing, realizing that it's not her own pain she's sensing. Emma Frost is physically fine.</p><p>  Charles Xavier is not.</p><p>  She can't reach him casually, so she does something she hasn't needed to do since she was a freaked out twelve-year-old. She sits on the floor, cross-legged, and closes her eyes, pressing both of her index and middle fingers to both sides of her temples. She <em>focuses</em>, and unlike when she was twelve and trying to shut the world out, this time, she's searching for another telepath.</p><p>  There's probably a joke to be made about irony, somewhere in here.</p><p>  There. Cuba, on the beach. He's in the sand, Erik is pulling the bullet from his back. Azazel is already gone, his reason for staying lying limply in the sand with a coin in his head. Janos and Angel are looking on with a mix of conflicting emotions that Emma is only able to catch because Charles happens to look up at them before pinching his eyes shut. Her back switches to diamond again, and she absentmindedly notes that it's a unique skill she only seems to be able to access when in moments of extreme distraction.</p><p>  Erik has stripped his helmet off now, and Moira (the CIA girl that Charles is obviously attracted to) and Raven (the shapeshifter, though that's only the fourth description Charles has of her when his mind goes through the familiar process of shock and identifying people approaching him) are on their knees beside the telepath. Moira is asking if he's okay, is the bullet out, where did it strike, and a few more questions that Charles can't process, and that Emma can't access because Charles can't process them.</p><p>  Emma knows before Charles does, because the pain isn't real for her, and she actually <em>pities</em> him. For the first time since she was a young teen, she feels empathy for someone. It's strange.</p><p>  "I can't feel my legs," he breathes. It's disbelief, panic, pain, and silent denial as he tries to reach them to correct his suspicions. But it dawns with all the world-shattering subtlety of a car hitting a brick wall. "I-I can't feel my legs." Raven lets out a choked sob as the rest of the group (X-Men, Emma gleans from his mind) begins to gather around their fallen leader. "I can't feel my legs."</p><p>  She wants to pull away now. She's already too attached, and the last time she was this invested in anything, she was 14 and convincing herself that she could be Daddy's golden girl and a mutant and her own person. That went down in a spectacular show of flames and blood and diamond disappearing into the woods.</p><p>  But he's scared and in pain, and she knows on instinct (on something deeper than blood, deeper than bone, deeper than her cold, self-preserving logic) that her presence is calming him. Having someone in his mind to anchor him is helping, in the same way that Moira's shouting through her radio and Raven's hand clenched in his and Erik promising to stay and do it Charles' way if he'll just <em>hang on</em> till help arrives is all helping Charles to keep his mind there.</p><p>  And really, Azazel won't come for her, and Janos might try but he'd fail, and Angel is more likely to side with the X-Men again.</p><p>  She knows lonely. She hates it. And Charles needs to not be lonely right now, especially if he's about to die.</p><p>  <em>"I won't leave Raven,"</em> he responds fiercely to Emma's detached sizing-up of the situation. She's almost surprised he answered her, let alone with such conviction.</p><p>  <em>I know,</em> she answers. She <em>is</em> surprised to hear herself think <em>And I'm not going to leave you,</em> which is, of course, followed by a flash of anger at herself for thinking that, doubly so with thinking it so clearly. He does sense it, and the small wave of gratitude he sends her before he loses his concentration and blacks out is enough to make her actually want to speak with him again.</p>
<hr/><p>  The next time she feels the cautious yet clumsy touch of his mind, he's drugged to the gills and barely able to think straight. She can hear the slurring of his thoughts as if they were the slurring of spoken words, and she acts uninterested while secretly probing the extent of his injuries.</p><p>  <em>"They tell me I'm never going to walk again,"</em> he says, and she can feel the <em>pain </em>behind those words. It's interesting to find she was hoping for a full recovery. <em>"I don't…know how to say…</em>it<em>…so I wondered if we might be able to…talk."</em> 'It' being the emotions he feels, a messy, tangled web of pain and anger and loathing and depression, knotted together in such a way that he can't even guess at how to start pulling the string free.</p><p>  She can't help but be drawn to helping him. It's probably mostly because they met before, once, at some fancy party where the adults only brought their kids along so everyone else could see how great they were. Pity, familiarity, acquaintance. A change from the boredom of the same four walls, shabby bed, and spying humans.</p><p>  <em>Talk away,</em> she replies, leaning against the wall. <em>I'm not going anywhere.</em></p><p>  She's oddly satisfied with the breathy chuckle she gets from him.</p>
<hr/><p>  Talking with Charles becomes the norm. The agents bring her food, and she unnerves them for fun, winking at them, talking to them telepathically, moving with such fluid grace that it's as if she's liquid gold in human form. They provide some entertainment, but the real weapon against boredom is Charles.</p><p>  He has so many stories to tell. Him and Raven, in their early days of childhood. Testing his powers by convincing his parents that Raven was supposed to be there, that they adopted her because she'd showed up hungry and scared and alone, and that they'd taken pity on her and allowed her to stay. It's not a lie, per se, but a retelling of the truth. And this was when he was 12. By that age, her powers were only just starting to become apparent. It's amusing to hear of his creative solution to any problems presented: Lying like a dog and then giving Raven the polished version later.</p><p>  Tricky, the both of them.</p><p>  Raven, by the way, has barely left Charles's side since it all happened.</p><p>  In turn, Emma tells him about her getting her parents wrapped around her finger and then immediately relenting, because getting everything she wanted wasn't anywhere near as fun as she thought it would be. Then, of course, there's getting everyone to adore the little girl with the blonde curls (she mentions how her mother put the curls in for her, because her mother – Emma's grandmother – did that to her, and she thought it was easier to show off a cute little thing with adorable curls) and playing around with her diamond form, piece by piece, until she could turn her whole body into a kaleidoscope.</p><p>  She doesn't say she still does on nights when she's feeling particularly lonely, and he doesn't mention it, but they both know.</p><p>  It's interesting to learn how his mind works as opposed to how hers does. When she doesn't want him to access an area, she walls it off behind a diamond blockade. When he doesn't want her to see something, he diverts her. Her mind is a city, a walled fortress, where complexity reigns so as to make it difficult for intruders to navigate. His is a house, a bright sanctuary, full of memories and experiences and confusing only if he chooses it to be. And where she's cold and detached, he's warm and inviting, even when it gets him hurt. She calls him naïve, he retorts by calling her an 'ice queen with exquisite armor.' They both chuckle about it.</p><p>  They heal.</p><p>  She's there when they let him into a wheelchair for the first time. Only now is he off the hospital bed, where the idea that his legs are now useless was more a faraway thing than a real and present part of his existence. She says nothing, he doesn't acknowledge her presence. He's miserable, but Hank says he'll build a better chair (and, reaching out, she can tell he's working on a serum to deal with his furriness) and Alex (Havok, the kid who can shoot beams of red energy) jokes about painting it some ridiculous color. Pink or green or purple. Charles actually shudders at the idea of a purple wheelchair. Raven sobs unconsolably.</p><p>  It's not a great day, overall. When everyone is gone, he cries, and Emma actually wishes she was there with him, rubbing his back and telling him that it'll be okay, that he's strong enough to adjust, that he <em>will</em> move past it. She finds that she's become rather attached to the telepath, and she distantly wonders how long it'll be before this most recent fantastical retreat slips from her fingers.</p><p>  She keeps all of <em>that</em> behind a diamond wall in the back of her mind. No need to make him feel more miserable than he already is.</p><p>  Recovery, paradoxically, both is slow and fast. He adapts to life in a wheelchair with unexpected grace (more grace than Erik, who wastes several rather expensive pieces of equipment in fits of helpless rage; more grace than Raven, who bursts into tears every so often when he moves to do something he no longer can; more grace than Hank, who handles it by designing that new wheelchair because building is what he does best, but it isolates him from them all), but his arms are unused to the work, and Moira is more often than not drafted into pushing him around. He's eternally grateful for the help, and at the same time, he loathes it. Emma can understand.</p><p>  They still talk. She gives him whatever tips she can think of that might be remotely useful, and he promises that when he's good with it (the wheelchair, the paralysis, the guilt), he'll come and get her himself. Moira, as it turns out, is already arguing for Emma's release.</p><p>  Emma refuses to allow herself to hope.</p><p>  Angel, as she guessed, decides to rejoin the X-Men. She's much more of a recluse now, and she goes by Tempest, but she's there, and Raven says that that's what matters. They're all together. Charles always replies with "Not quite yet, we're not," and every time he does, it's a knife to the gut. She can't bring herself to believe it. No, there's no way Charles is serious about letting her come, letting her stay. There's no way Moira can argue for her release. There's no way she can get attached to anything, ever again.</p><p>  Because in the end, she's a diamond-clad ice queen, and anything that gets close gets cut. That's her lot in life.</p>
<hr/><p>  December 2nd comes with the shock of her life. The door to her cell is opened when it's not breakfast, lunch, or dinner. All efforts at contacting Charles have failed, and it's only when he wheels through the doorway, followed by Moira and Erik, that she understands why.</p><p>  "Hello, Emma," Charles greets with a wide smile, one she knows so well from his own mental image during their conversations. She can only blink at him, unable to come up with a witty retort. "Had enough of this cell yet?"</p><p>  She actually cries. For the first time in decades, she cries. If Charles wasn't a telepath, he'd be concerned. As it is, Moira, Erik, and the two guards accompanying them are stunned (and a little frightened) when Emma breaks out into honest-to-God tears at Charles Xavier, in her prison cell, coming to get her like he promised he would.</p><p>  It's a good day. She only manages to be smug just as they're leaving. She gives William Stryker Sr. a look over her shoulder. "Say hi to Billy boy for me, okay, sugar?" He glares daggers into her back as she gets into the car with the other two mutants and Charles's not-so-secret crush.</p><p>  The mansion really is as massive as Charles said it was. It's already being retrofitted as a school, and Charles' eyes light up when he explains his plans. A school for mutants. A safe haven where they can learn about their powers and grow and not be afraid to show who they are. Moira's smiling as brightly as he is, and Emma begrudgingly agrees that they're a good match. Erik smiles, though not as brightly, as every step of the way is led, first and foremost, by Charles and his new, silver wheelchair. He feels guilty. It's a problem to be addressed later.</p><p>  "Would you be willing to stay?" he asks her, at the end of the tour/plan-exposition. "You wouldn't have to be a teacher, but it would be nice if you stayed."</p><p>  She looks around, as if considering the decision. But, really, what was there to consider? He came, like he said he would. She wasn't alone.</p><p>  "High school classes <em>only</em>," she replies, looking down at him. He grins, and she can't help but smile.</p><p>  "Welcome aboard," is what he says verbally.</p><p>  <em>"Welcome home,"</em> is what he thinks to her.</p>
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